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BISHOP  CUMMINS'  LETTER 

F   "  ABAUDOUMEUT   OF  THE   COMMUNION  OP  THE 
OHUSOH." 


BISHOP  ALFRED  LEE'S   "OPEN  LETTER," 

IN   EEPLY. 


BISHOP  CUMMINS'  SERMON 

IN   DEFENCE   OF   THE   PEAYEE   BOOK. 


BISHOP  JOHNS'  LETTER 

I  EEPLT  TO  THE  LETTEE  OF  THE  EEV.  ME.  LATANE. 


M'CALLA  &  STAVELY,  Publishers,  237-9  Dock  St.,  Phila. 

I.  R.  WELDIN  &  CO. 
101  Wood   Street,  Pittsburgh. 


J^ew  York,  jS  E.  22d  Street, 

March  9,  1874. 
Messrs.  M'Calla  &  Stavely, 

Dear  Sirs : — I  am  much  pleased  with  your  plan  of 
publishing  a  Tract,  containing  the  matters  you  men- 
tion, ?'.  r.  .• — 

1.  Dr,  Cummins'  Letter  to  Bishop  Smith,  on  leaving 
the  Church. 

2.  Bishop  Alfred  Lee's  Letter  to  Dr.  Cummins. 

3.  Dr.  Cummins'  Sermon  on  the  Prayer  Book. 

4.  Bishop  Johns'  Letter  to  Rev.  Mr.  Latane. 
Nothing  could  be  better.     I  shall  be  glad  to  promote 

the  circulation  of  the  Tract  in  my  Diocese,  and  will 
take  at  least  2000  copies.* 

It  is  grateful  to  all  hearts  to  see  two  of  our  honored 
Bishops  standing  forth,  in  advanced  life,  in  defence  of  the 
Church  we  have  all  loved  and  labored  for. 

A  very  few  expressions  in  the  letters  of  Bishop  Johns 
and  Lee  I  might  have  wished  to  qualify.  But  those 
matters  may  be  safely  left  to  the  judgment  of  the  Church. 
In  the  main,  both  letters  are  cogent  and  in  the  true 
spirit.  I  commend  them  to  the  careful  consideration  of 
the  members  of  my  Diocese. 

In  future  years  it  will  be  matter  of  wonder  that  the 
Church  could  have  been  agitated  by  such  things  (the 
eccentricities  of  8  or  10  congregations  out  of  2,800!)  as 
have  now  been  used  to  excuse  clamor  and  schism. 

Very  truly,  yours, 

HORATIO  POTTER, 

Bishop  of  New  York. 

*  The  Bishop  afterwards  increased  his  order  to  4000. 


BISHOP  CUMMINS'  LETTER 


OF 


(( 


Abandonment  of  the  Communion  of  the 
Church." 


New  York,  November  lo,  1873. 

To  THE  Right  Reverend  Benjamin  Bosworth  Smith, 
D.D.,  Bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church 
IN  the  Diocese  of  Kentucky, 

Ri.  Rev.  and  Dear  Bishop  : — Under  a  solemn  sense  of 
duty,  and  in  the  fear  of  God,  I  have  to  tell  you  that  I 
am  about  to  retire  from  the  work  in  which  I  have  been 
engaged  for  the  last  seven  years  in  the  Diocese  of  Ken- 
tucky, and  thus  to  sever  the  relations  which  have  existed 
so  happily  and  harmoniously  between  us  during  that 
time. 

It  is  due  to  you,  and  to  my  many  dear  friends  in  the 
Diocese  of  Kentucky  and  elsewhere,  that  I  should  state 
clearly  the  causes  which  have  led  me  to  this  determina- 
tion. 

I.  First,  then,  you  well  know  how  heavy  has  been  the 
trial  of  having  to  exercise  my  office  in  certain  Churches 
in  the  Diocese  of  Kentucky  where  the  services  are  con- 
ducted so  as  to  symbolize  and  to  teach  the  people  doc- 
trines, subversive  of  the  "truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus,"  and  as 
'     ■  ■     ■  (3) 


it  was  maintained  and  defended  by  the  Reformers  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century. 

On  each  occasion  that  I  have  been  called  upon  to 
officiate  in  those  Churches,  I  have  been  most  painfully 
impressed  by  the  conviction  that  I  was  sanctioning  and 
endorsing,  by  my  presence  and  official  acts,  the  danger- 
ous errors  symbolized  by  the  services  customary  in 
Ritualistic  Churches. 

I  can  no  longer,  by  my  participation  in  such  services, 
be  "  a  partaker  of  other  men's  sins,"  and  must  clear  my 
own  soul  of  all  complicity  in  such  errors. 

2.  I  have  lost  all  hope  that  this  system  of  error  now 
prevailing  so  extensively  in  the  Church  of  England,  and 
in  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  this  country,  can 
be  or  will  be  eradicated  by  any  action  of  the  authorities 
of  the  Church,  legislative  or  executive.  The  only  true 
remedy,  in  my  judgment,  is  the  judicious,  yet  thorough 
Revision  of  the  Prayer  Book,  eliminating  from  it  all  that 
gives  countenance,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  whole 
system  of  Sacerdotalism  and  Ritualism  :  a  Revision  after 
the  model  of  that  recommended  by  the  Commission  ap- 
pointed in  England  under  Royal  Authority,  in  1689,  and 
whose  work  was  endorsed  by  the  great  names  of  Burnet, 
Patrick,  Tillotson,  and  Stillingfleet,  and  others,  of  the 
Church  of  England — a  blessed  work,  which  failed,  alas  ! 
to  receive  the  approval  of  Convocation,  but  was  taken  up 
afterwards  by  the  Leathers  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  United  States,  and  embodied  in  the  Prayer 
Book  of  1785,  which  they  set  forth  and  recommended 
for  use  in  this  country. 

I  propose  to  return  to  that  Prayer  Book,  sanctioned  by 
William  White,  and  to  tread  in  the  steps  of  that  saintly 
man,  as  he  acted  from  1785  to  1789. 


5 

3-  One  other  reason  for  my  present  action  remains  to 
be  given.  On  the  last  day  of  the  late  conference  of  the 
Evangelical  Alliance,  I  participated  in  the  celebration  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  by  invitation,  in  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Hall's  Church,  in  the  City  of  New  York,  and  united 
with  Dr.  Hall,  Dr.  William  Arnot,  of  Edinburgh,  and 
Prof  Dorner,  of  Berlin,  in  that  precious  Feast.  It  was 
a  practical  manifestation  of  the  real  unity  of  "  the  blessed 
company  of  all  faithful  people  "  whom  God  "  hath  knit 
together  in  one  communion  and  fellowship,  in  the  mysti- 
cal body  of  His  Son  Jesus  Christ." 

The  results  of  that  participation  have  been  such  as  to 
prove  to  my  mind,  that  such  a  step  cannot  be  taken  by 
one  occupying  the  position  I  now  hold,  without  sadly 
disturbing  the  peace  and  harmony  of  "  this  Church," 
and  without  impairing  my  influence  for  good  over  a  large 
portion  of  the  same  Church,  very  many  of  whom  are 
within  our  own  Diocese. 

As  I  cannot  surrender  the  right  and  privilege  thus  to 
meet  my  fellow-Christians  of  other  Churches  around  the 
tabl&s  of  our  dear  Lord,  I  must  take  my  place  where  I 
can  do  so  without  alienating  those  of  my  own  household 
of  faith. 

I,  therefore,  leave  the  communion  in  which  I  have 
labored  in  the  sacred  ministry  for  over  twenty-eight 
years,  and  transfer  my  work  and  office  to  another  sphere 
of  labor.  I  have  an  earnest  hope  and  confidence  that  a 
basis  for  the  union  of  all  Evangelical  Christendom  can 
be  found  in  a  communion  which  shall  retain  or  restore 
a  Primitive  Episcopacy  and  a  pure  Scriptural  Liturgy, 
with  a  fidelity  to  the  doctrine  of  Justification  by  Faith 
only,  Afticuhis  stantis  vel  cadcntis  Ecclcsiae,  a  position  to- 
wards which  the  Old  Catholic%  in  Europe  are  rapidly 


tending,  and  which  has  already  taken  a  definite  form 
in  "  The  Church  of  Jesus,"  in  Mexico. 

To  this  blessed  work  I  devote  the  remaining  years  of 
life,  content  if  I  can  only  see  the  dawn  of  that  blessed 
day  of  the  Lord. 

I  am,  dear  Bishop,  faithfully  yours  in  Christ, 

George  David  Cummixs. 

My  address  for  the  present  will  be  No.  2  Bible  House, 
New  York. 


BISHOP  ALFRED  LEE'S  "OPEN  LETTER," 

IN    REPLY. 


The  following  letter,  as  the  date  shows,  was  the  im- 
pulse of  my  mind  after  reading  the  communication  from 
Bishop  Cummins  to  Bishop  Smith  After  writing  it, 
there  seemed  so  little  prospect  of  influencing  him,  that  I 
refrained  from  sending  it.  The  judgment  of  friends  to 
whom  it  was  recently  shown,  induces  me  to  make  it 
public. 


Wilmington,  Del.,  Nov.  14th,  1873. 

The  Rt.  Rev.  George  D.  Cummins,  D.D.  : 
f  My  dear  Friend  and  BrotJicr : — I  shall  not  attempt  to 
express  the  surprise  and  sorrow  occasioned  by  your 
letter  of  November  loth,  1S73,  addressed  to  the  vener- 
able Bishop  of  Kentucky,  and  published  to  the  world 
without  waiting  for  his  answer.  To  me,  as  well  as  to 
your  former  associates  generally,  so  far  as   my  knowl- 


edge  extends,  the  step  you  have  taken  in  renouncing 
your  connection  with  the  Church  in  which  you  have 
exercised  so  high  an  office  appears  most  ill-advised  and 
unhappy.  As  one  who  admitted  you  into  the  ministry 
of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  twenty-eight  years 
ago,  and  who  has  been  associated  with  you  in  fraternal 
co-operation,  I  cannot  withhold  some  notice  of  your 
communication.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  pain  and 
disappointment  occasioned  by  this  repudiation  of  a  trust 
which  you  once  counted  so  sacred.  Neither  is  it  my 
province  to  pronounce  upon  the  motives  by  which  you 
have  been  actuated.  But  I  may  be  pardoned  for  setting 
before  you  plainly  the  aspect  of  this  case,  which  presents 
itself  to  one  who  formerly  stood  to  you  in  an  almost 
paternal  relation. 

At  the  outset  I  must  be  permitted  to  declare  my 
astonishment  that  a  decision  so  momentous  should  have 
been  formed  and  made  public  without  a  word  of  pre- 
vious consultation  with  those  best  entitled  to  your  con- 
fidence. If  my  conferring  upon  you  Holy  Orders  when 
you  entered  our  Church,  and  the  friendship  which  has 
since  existed  between  us,  gave  me  no  claim  to  be  con- 
sulted, surely  that  venerable  and  godly  man  whose 
Episcopal  duties  you  shared,  and  who  relied  so  much  on 
your  assistance  at  his  advanced  period  of  life,  ought  not 
to  have  been  left  in  ignorance  until  your  purpose  was 
irrevocable.  Yet  not  a  word  was  breathed  to  either  of 
us,  or  to  other  brethren  with  whom  you  had  been  in 
previous  sympathy.  We  met  just  before  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia  at  the  Anniversaries  of  what  are  known  as 
the  Evangelical  Societies.  At  those  meetings  you  took 
a  prominent  part — a  part  scarcely  to  be  reconciled  with 
wavering  loyalty  to  the  Church,  within  whose   bosom 


8 

they  were  formed.  Either  your  purpose  was  then  un- 
decided, and  you  surely  might  have  given  your  friends 
an  opportunity  of  remonstrance;  or  you  ought,  in  candor, 
to  have  made  known  your  intentions,  and  decHned  being 
put  forward  as  an  expositor  of  their  principles.  In  any 
event,  if  your  purpose  grew  out  of  mature  deliberation 
and  earnest  prayer,  it  would  have  borne  examination, 
and  you  need  not  have  shrunk  from  imparting  it  to  the 
ear  of  friendship.  If  such  consultation  had  confirmed 
your  own  previous  conclusions,  then  you  W9uld  have 
avoided  the  appearance  of  unbecoming  precipitancy  in  a 
matter  which  may  be  fraught  with  the  gravest  conse- 
quences, and  which  concerns  many  besides  yourself  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  you  might  have  been  convinced  that 
the  step  meditated  would  be  rash  and  pernicious,  the 
impulse  of  morbid  feeling  and  temporary  irritation,  then 
you  would  not  have  inflicted  upon  the  Church  which 
has  trusted  and  honored  you,  a  wound  so  grievous. 

I  will  now  briefly  glance  at  the  reasons  assigned  in 
your  letter : 

I.  You  speak  of  "  the  trial  of  having  to  exercise  your 
office  in  certain  Churches  in  the  Diocese  of  Kentucky, 
where  the  services  are  so  conducted  as  to  symbolize  and 
teach  doctrines  subversive  of  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus." 
You  "  have  been  painfully  impressed  by  the  conviction 
that  you  were  sanctioning,  by  your  presence  and  official 
acts,  the  dangerous  errors  symbolized  by  the  services 
customary  in  Ritualistic  Churches."  But,  my  dear 
brother,  were  your  lips  sealed  when  present  in  your  offi- 
cial capacity  ?  Were  you  not  clothed  with  authority  to 
preach  the  Word,  to  reprove,  rebuke,  exhort  with  all 
long-suffering  and  doctrine  ?  Could  you  not  bear  your 
testimony  against  dangerous  innov^ations  as  plainly  and 


decidedly  in  the  pulpit  and  from  the  chancel,  as  upon 
the  platform  in  our  large  eastern  cities  ?  Nay,  if  in  one 
place  more  than  in  another  you  could  be  out-spoken, 
would  it  not  be  in  your  own  Diocese,  and  among  those 
committed  to  your  oversight  ?  There,  emphatically,  you 
could  put  forth  your  energies,  strive  "  to  banish  and 
drive  away  from  the  Church  all  erroneous  and  strange 
doctrines  contrary  to  God's  Word,  and  call  upon  and  en- 
courage others  to  do  the  same."  This,  I  freely  admit, 
is  no  pleasant  duty,  but  when  the  question  is  of  abandon- 
ing a  post  to  which  we  once  thought  the  Lord  had  called 
us,  then  is  it  the  time  to  endure  hardness  as  a  good 
soldier  of  Jesus  Christ.  So  long  as  no  restraint  was 
placed  upon  your  presentation  of  the  truth  in  sermons, 
charges,  addresses  and  pastoral  letters,  you  could  de- 
liver your  own  soul ;  neither  could  you  "be  made  par- 
taker of  other  men's  sins." 

That  there  should  be  within  our  Church  false  teaching 
and  practices,  symbolizing  errors,  is  indeed  a  grief  and  a 
burden  to  many  of  her  faithful  ministers  and  members. 
I  am  not  one  to  make  light  of  them. 

But  is  it  a  new  thing?  Was  the  Apostolic  Church 
unvexed  by  similar  evils  ?  Had  St.  Paul  nothing  to  con- 
tend with  from  "  false  brethren,"  and  from  the  intrusion 
of  "  another  Gospel  ?"  Were  such  things  wholly  un- 
known when  you  accepted  the  office  to  which  you  were 
elected  by  the  Convention  of  the  Diocese  of  Kentucky? 
You  then  uttered  before  God  and  men,  the  following 
declaration  and  promise : 

"  In  the  name  of  God,  Amen.  I,  George  David  Cummins,  chosen 
Assistant  Bishop  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  Kentucky,  do 
promise  conformity  to  the  doctrine,  discipline  and  worship  of  the  Prot- 
estant Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America.  So  help  me 
God,  through  Jesus  Christ." 


lO 

Has  there  been  the  smallest  authorized  change  since 
you  gave  that  pledge  ?  Has  there  been  an  iota  added 
to  or  taken  from  the  standards  of  the  Church  ?  Are  not 
her  Articles  and  Liturgy  the  same,  verbatim  et  literatim  ? 
If  you  could  then  with  a  good  conscience  utter  that  vow, 
are  you  now  justified  in  repudiating  so  solemn  an  en- 
gagement ? 

2.  You  "  have  lost  all  hope  that  this  system  of  error 
can  be  or  will  be  eradicated  by  any  action  of  the  authori- 
ties of  the  Church,  legislative  or  executive."  As  it  was 
never  sanctioned  by  authorities,  legislative  or  executive, 
those  who  resist  and  denounce  it  stand  on  the  vantage 
ground  in  this  respect.  But  with  regard  to  the  evil 
itself,  why  should  you  be  hopeless  ?  In  combatting  such 
errors,  had  you  not  with  you  the  Word  of  God,  the  doc- 
trinal standards  of  your  Church,  the  protest  of  the  re- 
formers, the  blood  of  martyrs,  the  sympathy  and  prayers 
of  thousands  of  efirnest  Christians?  Is  such  a  cause  to 
be  despaired  of?  Does  not  truth  rise  up  invincible  from 
depression  and  defeat,  and  vindicate  her  heavenly  birth? 
I  believe  better  things  of  that  grand  old  Church  whose 
light  has  never  been  quenched  since  kindled  at  martyr 
pyres,  and  which  for  centuries  has  born©  the  brunt  of 
outward  hostility  and  internal  treachery. 

But  admitting  the  dangers  to  be  great,  and  the  pros- 
pect gloomy,  is  that  a  reason  why  the  pilot  should  de- 
sert the  helm  ?  The  shepherd  abandon  the  flock  ?  If 
the  shepherd  sees  the  wolf  coming  is  not  that  the  time  to 
stand  at  his  post,  even  if  he  must  give  his  life  for  the 
sheep  ?  If  you  cannot  wholly  keep  out  the  enemy,  so 
formidable  or  so  insidious,  you  may  hope  by  all  means 
to  save  some  of  the  flock  entrusted  to  your  care.  You 
are  well  aware  that  to  a  large  body  of  the  clergy  and 


II 


laity  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  I  might  say  a 
large  majority,  Romish  and  Ritualistic  invocations  are  as 
distasteful  as  to  yourself.       Is   it  the  post  of  a  good 
soldier  of  Jesus  Christ  to   desert  in  the  hour  of  peril 
brethren  who  are  striving  to  fight  the  good  fight  of  faith  ? 
The  only  true  remedy  in  your  judgment  is  "  the  re- 
vision of  the  Prayer  Book,  eliminating  from  it  all  that 
gives  countenance,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  whole 
system  of  Sacerdotalism  or  Ritualism."     If  this  be  the 
remedy,  you  were   at   liberty  to    advocate    it   to  your 
heart's  content.     Our  Church,  in  Article  VI.,  recognizes 
Holy  Scripture  as  the  one  standard  of  faith  and  practice. 
That  it  would  be  highly  desirable,  for  the  sake  of  peace 
and  to  prevent  misunderstanding,  to  change  a  very  few 
expressions  in  our  services  I  have  steadily  maintained  ; 
not  that  I  think  they  really  teach  error,  but  that  they 
may  be  misinterpreted  and  abused.     But  the  course  of 
some  of  the  prominent  advocates  of  Revision  has  been 
so    captious,    unreasonable,    and    unfair,    as    greatly    to 
diminish  the  prospect  of  success.     But  is  it  true  that  the 
errors  of  which  you  complain  are  wholly  attributable  to 
abuse  of  the   language  of  the  Prayer  Book  ?     My  im- 
pression is,  that  they  generally  arise  from  perversions  of 
the  language  of  Holy  Writ.     Exaggerated  sacramental 
views  are  founded  upon  taking  literally  what  the  Scrip- 
ture  intends   to  be  understood    spiritually — upon  "  the 
letter  that  killeth."     The   false   doctrine    once  adopted 
strives  to  lay  hold  of  anything  that  may  be  twisted  to  its 
purpose,  and  the  Liturgy  cannot  escape.     But  the  weak 
arguments  and  disingenuous  course  of  the  Romanizing 
party  plainly  show  that  they  have  no  solid  ground  to 
stand  upon. 

You  desire  a  Revision  after  the  model  recommended 


13 

in  England  by  the  Commission  of  1689.  But  arc  you 
not  aware  that  most  of  these  recommendations  are 
embodied  in  our  present  Book,  and  that  although  they 
failed  in  England,  they  found  acceptance  here.  Says 
Bishop  Short  (History  of  the  Church  of  England),  "  The 
American  Prayer  Book,  altered  in  1790,  is  formed  in  a 
great  measure  on  this." 

But  still  more  explicitly  you  write,  "  I  propose  to  re- 
turn to  the  Prayer  Book  sanctioned  by  William  White, 
and  to  tread  in  the  steps  of  that  saintly  man  as  he  acted 
from  1785  to  1789."  I  would  not  be  understood  as  dis- 
paraging in  any  way  so  excellent  and  wise  a  man  as 
Bishop  White,  when  I  affirm  that,  so  far  as  the  interests 
of  Protestant  and  Evangelical  truth  are  concerned,  to 
leave  our  present  volume  for  the  Book  of  1785,  would 
be  retrogression  and  not  advance.  Bishop  White  him- 
self indicates  no  special  fondness  for  this  Book,  and 
manifests  no  regret  that  it  was  not  finally  adopted.  In- 
deed, his  tone  as  to  some  points  is  far  from  eulogistic. 

In  that  Book  the  decided  Protest  of  our  Articles 
against  the  Errors  of  Rome  is  greatly  softened  and  toned 
down.  The  clear  ringing  sound  of  the  Reformers  grows 
comparatively  faint  and  feeble.  We  miss  their  condem- 
nation of  the  adding  of  five  Sacraments  to  the  two  insti- 
tuted by  Christ  himself,  of  the  sacrifices  of  masses,  of  the 
denial  of  the  cup  to  the  laity,  of  enforced  clerical  celi- 
bacy ;  the  five  articles  declaring  our  faith  in  the  Holy 
Trinity  are  compressed  into  one,  defective  in  highly  im- 
portant statements,  and  the  Nicene  Creed  is  omitted. 
If  certain  changes  in  the  Baptismal  service,  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  word  minister  for  priest  in  various  rubrics 
are  great  recommendations  in  your  view,  they  were 
dearly  purchased  by  the  defective  doctrinal  character  of 


13 

the  articles.  With  regard  to  the  two  points  referred  to, 
the  objectionable  interpretation  sometimes  placed  on  the 
language  of  the  Baptismal  service  was  explicitly  denied 
by  the  House  of  Bishops  at  the  Convention  of  187 1,  and 
the  word  Priest  is  well  understood  to  be  a  contracted 
form  of  Presbyter.  If  the  word  itself  be  an  offence,  it  is 
not  avoided  in  the  Proposed  Book  which  (Article  XIX.) 
adopts  the  Ordinal. 

You  gave,  as  an  additional  reason  for  your  course,  the 
proof  afforded  by  the  results  of  your  taking  part  in  the 
celebration  of  the  Lord's  Supper  at  a  Presbyterian  Church, 
that  "  such  a  step  could  not  be  taken  without  disturbing 
the  harmony  of  the  Church  and  impairing  your  influence 
there   and   within   your   own  Diocese."     And  on   this 
ground  you  do  what  is  vastly  more  disturbing  to  such 
harmony.     If  fully  persuaded  in  your  own  mind,  why 
should  you  be  greatly  affected  by  unfavorable  comments  ? 
For  them  you  could  not  have  been  wholly  unprepared. 
However  unpleasant  expressions  of  disapprobation  may 
be,  if  conscious  that  we  are  right,  we  need  not  be  vastly 
troubled  by  them.    That  anything  more  than  such  com- 
ments would  have  resulted,  I  see  no  reason  to  appre- 
hend.    A  meeting  of  the  Bishops  took  place  within  a 
very  few  days  after  in  the  city  of  New  York,  from  which 
you  absented  yourself;  but  nothing  whatever  was  said 
upon  this  subject.     However  much  the  views  of  some 
of  your  brethren  differed  from  your  own,  you  would 
have  experienced  from  the  House,  as  a  body,  only  for- 
bearance and  consideration. 

The  catholic  and  comprehensive  character  of  our 
Church  admits  wide  diversity  of  sentiment  within  the 
limits  of  the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 

The  position  of  your  letter,  which  occasioned  me  the 


14 

deepest  pain  and  solicitude,  was  that  in  which  you  seem 
to  intimate  a  purpose  of  starting  a  new  sect.  Can  it  be 
possible  !  Is  disunion  to  be  the  issue  of  your  aspirations 
for  closer  unity  !  Will  you  add  another  to  the  unhappy 
divisions  of  Protestant  Christendom,  and  when  the  Church 
of  Christ  is  already  so  broken  up,  increase  the  number 
of  fragmentary  bodies  ?  If  so,  you  may  live  to  mourn 
so  rash  and  unwarrantable  a  step,  the  mischiefs  of  which 
may  extend  further  than  either  of  us  can  foresee.  That 
such  an  attempt  can  be  permanently  successful  I  do  not 
believe.  Experiments  in  that  direction  have  not  been 
encouraging.  If  the  effort  prove  a  disastrous  failure, 
there  will  be  little,  I  conceive,  to  console  the  projectors 
under  the  disappointment.  In  the  sentiment  that  "  a 
basis  for  the  union  of  Evangelical  Christendom  can  be 
found  in  a  communion  retaining  a  Primitive  Episcopacy, 
and  a  pure  Scriptural  Liturgy  with  fidelity  to  the  doc- 
trine of  justification  by  faith  only,"  I  cordially  agree. 
Such  a  communion  it  has  not  been  left  for  the  19th 
century  to  create.  Such  a  communion  I  believe  to  be 
that  which  you  have  now  abandoned. 
Your  friend  of  many  years, 

Alfred  Lee. 


BISHOP  CUMMINS'  SERMON 

Ii\  DEFENCE  OF  THE  PRAYER  BOOK. 


In  1861,  Dr.  Cummins  delivered  a  sermon  in  Philadel- 
phia, in  behalf  of  the  Bishop  White  Prayer  Book  Society, 
and  in  1867,  after  he  had  been  consecrated  to  the  Episco- 
pate, as  Assistant  Bishop  of  Kentucky,  he  preached  before 
the  Convention  of  that  Diocese  that  .same  sermon,  re- 
written, with  additional  matter.  The  views  and  argu- 
ments of  the  Bishop  so  impressed  that  venerable  body, 
that  the  sermon  was  published  with  the  Bishop's  con- 
sent, as  follows  : 

The  Prayer  Book  a  Basis  of  Unity. 

Jeremiah  vi,  16. — "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  stand  ye  in  the  ways  and 
see,  and  ask  for  the  old  paths  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein, 
and  ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls." 

"  The  immediate  present,"  says  the  latest  historian  of 
England,  "  however  awful  its  import,  will  ever  seem 
common  and  familiar  to  those  who  live  and  breathe  in 
the  midst  of  it.  In  the  days  of  the  September  massacre 
at  Paris,  the  theatres  were  open  as  usual ;  men  ate  and 
drank  and  laughed  and  cried,  and  went  about  their  com- 
mon work,  unconscious  that  those  days  which  were  pass- 
ing by  them,  so  much  like  other  days,  would  remain  the 
dies  ne/asil,  accursed  in  the  memory  of  mankind  forever. 
Nothing  is  terrible,  nothing  is  sublime  in  human  things 
so  long  as  they  are  before  our  eyes.     It  is  only  when 

(15) 


i6 

time  has  done  its  work  that  such  periods  stand  out  in 
their  true  significance." 

It  may  be  doubted  if  this  remark  is  true  of  the  age  in 
which  we  live.  The  impression  is  deep  and  profound, 
in  every  thoughtful  mind,  that  the  age  in  which  our  lot 
is  cast  is  no  common  or  ordinary  age,  but  one  ever  to  be 
remembered  for  its  great  events,  its  strange  characteris- 
tics. And  among  these,  it  may  be  doubted  if  there  is 
any  peculiarity  more  marked,  and  indeed  more  moment- 
ous, than  the  spirit  of  change,  nay  of  rash  and  reckless 
innovation,  which,  under  the  noble  name  of  progress,  de- 
ludes the  minds  of  millions.  In  science,  in  philosophy, 
in  religion,  it  is  a  time  marked  by  the  casting  off  of  all 
the  authority  of  the  past,  by  an  attempt  to  unsettle  the 
foundations  on  which  successive  generations  have  built 
and  dwelt  in  serenity  and  peace. 

In  the  sphere  of  religious  truth  this  tendency  finds  its 
widest,  its  most  alarming  development;  and  there  is 
nothing  sadder  on  this  earth  than  the  spectacle  of  a  gifted 
mind  like  Robertson,  of  Brighton,  letting  go  at  one  time 
all  the  precious  faith  of  his  childhood,  and  sinking  into 
the  darkest  abyss  of  doubt,  where  the  only  ray  of  light 
left  him,  was  the  single  truth,  "  it  must  at  least  be  right 
to  do  right."  How  precious  at  such  a  time  the  inheri- 
tance of  a  faith  whose  cardinal  doctrine  is  that  it  admits 
of  no  change,  but  is,  like  its  great  Author,  "  the  same 
yesterday,  and  to-day,  and  forever;"  which,  rejoicing  in 
all  progress  in  science,  in  philosophy,  in  freedom,  earn- 
estly denies  that  in  divine  truth  there  can  be  any  progress, 
and  contends  steadfastly  for  the  faith  once  delivered  unto 
the  saints,  whose  utterance  ever  is,  the  old  paths  are  the 
only  true  paths,  the  only  safe  paths,  and  whose  voice 
ever  sounding  amid  the  din  and  strife  of  the  present  is, 


17 

"  Stand  in  the  ways  and  see,  and  ask  for  the  old  paths, 
where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein,  and  ye  shall 
find  rest  for  your  souls." 

But  not  less  marked  than  this,  is  another  peculiarity 
marking  the  religious  character  of  our  age.  It  is  the 
longing  for  unity.  It  is  the  profound  feeling  that  the 
present  state  of  Christendom  is  not  what  its  Divine 
Father  designed  it  to  be.  His  prayer  that  His  people 
may  all  be  one,  has  never  yet  been  realized,  and  that  the 
spectacle  of  a  divided  and  warring  Christendom — Christ's 
seamless  robe  torn  and  rent — is  a  grief  to  the  heart  of 
the  Divine  Master,  and  a  mighty  hindrance 'to  the  final 
triumph  of  His  kingdom. 

Under  the  influence  of  this  conviction  men  are  yearn- 
ing for  unity,  some  blindly  feeling  after  it,  and  v/illing  for 
its  attainment  to  sacrifice  even  vital  truth.  Rejoicing  in 
this  tendency  of  men's  minds,  and  desiring  to  add  my 
mite  to  its  safe  direction,  I  propose  to-day  for  my  theme 
the  fitness  of  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  to  be  the  bond 
of  unity,  the  manual  of  worship  for  all  the  confessions 
which  divide  Protestant  Christendom, the  golden  chain  to 
restore  the  ancient  unity  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Re- 
deemer. 

I.  And  first,  the  special  fitness  of  the  Prayer  Book  to 
fulfill  this  office  arises  from  the  fact  that  it  embodies,  as 
no  other  uninspired  volume  does,  the  ancient  and  primi- 
tive catholic  faith  of  Christ's  Church;  not  catholic  in  any 
corrupt,  or  perverted,  or  exclusive  sense,  but  catholic  in 
the  sense  of  the  once  universal,  unadulterated  faith  of 
Scripture — the  faith  of  the  Church,  when  its  heart  was 
yet  warm  with  its  first,  fresh  love,  ere  philosophy,  falsely 
so-called,  had  defiled  the  pure  well-spring  of  sacred  truth. 
And  this  old  and  undefiled  faith,  the  Prayer  Book  em- 


i8 

bodies,  not  merely  in  confessions  and  creeds  and  articles 
of  dogmatic  theology,  but,  what  is  far  better,  in  devo- 
tional offices,  in  the  utterances  of  prayer  and  praise,  in 
supplication  and  adoration;  so  that  the  incense  of'its  de- 
votion is  fragrant  with  the  most  precious  truth  in  God's 
holy  word.  This  goodly  robe  of-  the  bride  of  Christ  is 
wrought  out  of  the  purest  gold  of  divine  truth — its  warp 
and  its  woof  are  alike  Holy  Scripture. 

Let  us  look  more  closely  into*this  statement.  What 
great  cardinal  truth  of  the  ancient  primitive  faith  is  not 
interwoven  ijito  the  very  texture  of  the  Liturgy  ? 

I.  Is  it  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  the  Triunity  of 
Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost?  The  wondrous  thing 
about  the  Liturgy  here  is,  that  it  brings  this  sublime 
verity  close  to  our  hearts  in  all  its  blessed  practical  sig-' 
nificance,  as  nothing  else  can  bring  it. 

Says  one,  who  is  not  of  this  fold,  but  who  bears  his 
admiring  testimony  from  without,  "  Who  that  has  been 
able,  in  some  frame  of  holy  longing  after  God,  to  clear 
away  the  petty  shackles  of  logic,  committing  the  soul  up 
freely  to  the  inspiring  impulse  of  this  divine  mystery  as 
it  is  celebrated  in  some  grand  doxology  of  Christiati 
worship — as  the  Gloria  Patri — a  hymn  of  the  ages  framed 
to  be  continuously  chanted  by  the  long  procession  oi 
times,  until  times  are  lapsed  into  eternity — and  has  been 
lifted  into  conscious  fellowship  with  the  great  celestial 
.minds  in  their  highest  ranges  of  blessedness  and  their 
Ishining  tiers  of  glory — who  has  not  known  it  as  being  at 
once  the  deepest,  highest,  widest,  most  enkindling  and 
most  practical  of  all  practical  truths  ?" 

This  is  the  work  of  the  Prayer  Book — to  turn  a  theo- 
logical mystery  into  a  precious  heart-truth  of  deepest  ex- 
perience.    For  as  soon  as  the  soul  of  the  worshipper  has 


19 

prostrated  itself  in  deepest  humility  and  penitence  before 
God,  and  received  the  declaration  of  His  abundant  par- 
don to  those  who  "truly  repent  and  unfeignedly  believe," 
it  rises  into  strains  of  loftiest  adoration  in  a  chant  which 
has  borne  to  heaven  the  praises  of  saints  for  1 500  years,  or 
in  the  thrilling  accents  of  the  angel's  song,  or  in  the 
hymn  of  St.  Ambrose,  cries  with  the  Seraphim,  "  Holy, 
Holy,  Lord  God  of  Sabaoth,  the  Father  of  an  infinite 
Alajesty,  Thine  adorable  and  true  and  only  Son;  also, 
the  Holy  Ghost,  the  Comforter !" 

Then  the  worshipper  turns  to  the  ancient  symbols, 
and  makes  his  confession  of  faith  in  a  creed  so  primitive 
and  pure  as  to  be  rightly  called  the  creed  of  Apostles, 
or  in  another,  scarcely  less  ancient  and  venerable,  and 
chants  "  God  of  God,-  Light  of  Light,  very  God  of  very 
God  1"  And  again  there  is  heard  the  deep,  earnest, 
plaintive  pleading  of  the  Litany,  and  to  each  adorable 
person  of  the  Godhead  does  the  prayer  ascend  until  it 
reaches  its  climax  in  "  O,  Holy,  blessed,  and  glorious 
Trinity,  Three  Persons  and  one  God,  have  mercy  upon 
us  1" 

How  can  this  foundation  truth  ever  be  lost  out  of 
the  heart  of  a  Church  whose  unchanging  order  of  prayer 
thus  enshrines  it  in  the  deepest,  holiest  feelings  of  the 
soul  ?  And,  if  one  who  ministers  at  her  altars  should 
prove  recreant  to  this  great  truth,  how  keen  is  the  re- 
buke which  he  must  feel,  as  forever  he  is  constrained  to 
unite  in  such  utterances. 

2.  Is  the  atonement,  the  vicarious  sacrifice  of  Christ 
upon  the  cross  for  us  men  and  our  salvation,  a  vital  part 
of  the  Christian  system  ?  Not  less  full  is  the  Prayer 
Book  of  this  than  of  the  Trinity;  not  in  the  formal  and 
abstruse  terms  of  the  theological  science,  serving  only 


20 

to  confuse  and  perplex  the  mind  of  the  simple  believer 
in  Jesus,  but  in  strong  cryings  and  pleadings  for  mercy 
"through  the  satisfaction  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

Of  the  200  prayers  and  collects  of  this  book,  all,  with 
scarce  an  exception,  are  offered  in  one  name,  are  based 
upon  one  plea,  "  through  the  merits  and  mediation  of 
Jesus  Christ,  our  adorable  Redeemer."  Redemption 
through  the  blood  of  the  Lamb  is  the  key-note  which 
floats  through  all  this  mingled  chorus  of  praise  and 
prayer.  "  Lamb  of  God,  that  taketh  away  the  sins  of 
the  world,"  is  the  Church's  ever-repeated  cry  in  the 
Gloria  in  Excelsis ;  "  When  Thou  hadst  overcome  the 
sharpness  of  Death,  Thou  didst  open  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  to  all  believers,"  is  its  echo  in  the  Tc Dcwn.  "By 
Thine  agony  and  bloody  sweat,  by  Thy  cross  and  pas- 
sion, by  Thy  precious  death  and  burial,"  is  the  sinner's 
only  claim  to  salvation. 

But  if  we  would  know  all  the  fullness  with  which  the 
Prayer  Book  sets  forth  the  propitiatory  sacrifice  for  sin 
by  the  blood  of  Christ,  we  must  turn  to  the  most  sacred 
and  precious  of  all  its  offices,  "the  order  for  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  Supper  of  the  Lord."  Language  seems 
powerless  to  convey  its  sense  of  the  infinite  preciousness 
of  the  Redeemer's  sacrifice.  At  each  notice  of  the  cele- 
bration of  this  sacred  feast,  the  minister  is  to  remind  the 
recipient  that  it  is  "  in  remembrance  of  His  meritorious 
cross  and  passion,  whereby  alone  we  obtain  remission  of 
our  sins."  In  the  exhortation  preceding  the  office  of 
consecration,  he  is  to  bid  them  give  thanks  to  God  "  for 
the  redemption  of  the  world  by  the  death  and  passion  of 
our  Saviour  Christ,  both  God  and  man,  who  did  humble 
himself  even  to  the  death  of  the  cross  for  us  miserable 
sinners."    As  he  kneels  before  the  Holy  Table,  he  prays 


21 

"  that  our  sinful  bodies  may  be  made  clean  by  His  body, 
and  our  souls  washed  through  His  most  precious  blood." 
And,  more  significant  than  all,  he  is  bidden  to  declare 
that  upon  the  Cross  Jesus  Christ  "  made  a  full,  perfect, 
and  sufficient  sacrifice,  oblation,  and  satisfaction  for  the 
sins  of  the  whole  world." 

Blessed  testimony  to  a  blessed  truth  !  How  sublimely 
does  this  volume  witness  to  this  "  old  path,"  this  "  good 
way"  of  salvation,  in  a  day  when  men  would  take  from 
the  Gospel  its  very  life-blood,  by  seeking  to  eliminate 
the  truth  of  Christ's  vicarious  sacrifice.  Let  us  thank 
God  that  its  ceaseless  utterance  is,  "  Behold  the  Lamb 
of  God,  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world." 

3.  Again,  is  the  plenary  inspiration  of  Holy  Scripture 
a  vital  truth,  essential  to  the  very  being  of  the  Faith  ? 
It  is  recognized  and  acknowledged  throughout  the  whole 
framework  of  the  Liturgy.  The  Prayer  Book  honors 
the  Word  of  God  as  it  is  honored  in  no  other  volume  on 
earth.  **  Hear  what  comfortable  words  our  Saviour 
Christ  saith  ;"  "  hear  what  the  Holy  Ghost  saith,"  is  its 
repeated  utterance,  as  it  echoes  the  teachings  of  Holy 
Scripture.  Here  is  no  doubting,  hesitating  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the  Bible.  And  now 
more  than  ever  we  prize  this  testimony,  when  recreant 
sons  of  our  Mother  Church  in  England  have  risen  up  to 
assail  this  pillar  of  the  truth.  Never  can  such  false 
teaching  widely  prevail  among  men  using  this  book, 
which  bids  them  pray,  "  Blessed  Lord,  who  hath  caused 
all  Holy  Scripture  to  be  written  for  our  learning."  Or 
again,  "  O  God,  who  hast  instructed  Thy  Church  by  the 
heavenly  doctrine  of  the  Evangelists,  give  us  grace  that, 
being  not  like  children  carried  away  by  every  blast  of 


vain  doctrine,  we  may  be  established  in  the  truths  of 
Thy  Holy  Gospel." 

Time  forbids  us  to  go  further  into  this  investigation, 
deeply  interesting  as  it  might  prove.  We  might  take 
successively  other  vital  and  central  truths,  dear  to  the 
hearts  of  God's  people  in  all  time,  and  show  how  each 
is  incorporated  into  the  very  life  of  devotion.  Thus  the 
truth  of  man's  ruined  nature,  the  office  and  work  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  the  renewal  and  sanctification  of  the  heart, 
justification  by  faith,  "  only  for  the  merits  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ" — "a  most  wholesome  doctrine 
and  very  full  of  comfort" — ^these  are  everywhere  in- 
wrought into  the  texture  of  this  book. 

This,  then,  is  our  first  argument.  If  to  pray  aright 
we  need  to  pray  "  with  the  spirit  and  the  understanding 
also,"  and  if  all  the  primal  and  essential  doctrines  of 
salvation  are  brought  to  ^he  heart  as  blessed  realities, 
and  made  the  very  flame  of  devotion  by  him  who 
worships  God  in  the  order  of  this  boolc,  is  it  not  eminently 
worthy  of  the  high  office  we  claim  for  it,  to  lead  the 
devotions  of  all  who  would  "  worship  in  spirit  and  in 
truth  ?" 

II.  We  advance  to  another  position.  The  Prayer  Book 
is  fitted  to  unite  all  reformed  communions,  because  it 
enshrines  most  faithfully  the  true  spirit  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. 

The  Book  of  Cotninon  Prayer  is  the  fairest  and  most 
beauteous  child  of  the  great  Reformation.  It  is  a  blessed 
monument  of  God's  goodness  to  His  Church,  in  bringing 
her  great  deliverance  after  long  ages  of  bondage  and 
darkness.  It  is  the  precious  casket  in  which  are  laid 
up  the  spoils  of  the  mightiest  conflict  waged  with  the 


23 

powers  of  darkness  since  the  fathers  of  Christendom  fell 
asleep,  for  "  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus." 

How  wondrously  can  we  trace  the  hand  of  God  in 
the  agencies  and  instruments  employed  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  work  !  First  came  the  "  Reformers 
before  the  Reformation."  Wicliffe  and  his  brotherhood, 
sowing  in  tears  the  seed  for  a  harvest  to  be  reaped  in  joy 
by  others.  Then  followed,  in  God's  good  time,  Cranmer 
and  his  co-laborers.  Jewel,  and  Latimer,  and  Ridley, 
and  others  whose  names  will  never  die,  first  in  1554  only 
permitted  to  translate  the  prayers  and  the  litany  into  the 
Iinglish  tongue  ;  next,  under  Edward  VI.,  setting  forth 
the  first  Book  of  Common  Prayer^  drawn  up  in  the  words 
of  the  royal  decree,  "  according  to  the  most  sincere  and 
pure  Christian  religion  taught  by  Scripture,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  usages  of  the  Primitive  Church." 

Then  came  the  memorable  Whitsunday  of  1549,  when 
for  the  first  time  the  reformed  liturgy  led  the  worship  of 
a  whole  realm,  rejoioing  in  "the  liberty  wherewith  Christ 
had  made  them  free."  Soon,  indeed,  under  another 
reign,  there  returned  for  a  season  anight  of  superstition, 
to  be  followed  only  by  a  more  glorious  day,  whose 
meridian  brightness  other  generations  are  yet  to  behold. 

But  what  a  history  is  condensed  into  the  few  sentences 
just  uttered  !  What  prayers  and  sacrifices,  what  patient 
waiting  and  suffering,  what  stripes  and  imprisonments, 
what  burnings  at  the  stake  were  needed  to  win  for  the 
Church  of  the  future  the  glorious  heritage  of  this  book ! 
And  the  great  principle  which  guided  theEnglish  reformers 
was  that  enjoined  in  the  text ;  they  sought  to  find  "  the 
old  paths,"  "  the  good  way  "  of  the  Church  in  its  days 
of  primitive  purity. 

Isaac  Walton  tells   us,  that  when  Sir  Henry  Wotton 


24 

was  present  at  a  Church  festival  in  the  city  of  Rome, 
and  Hstening  to  strains  of  exquisite  music,  a  priest, 
thinking  the  time  a  favorable  one  to  win  him  over  to  the 
Romish  faith,  sent  to  him  a  note  with  this  question  : 
"  Where  was  your  religion  before  Luther  ?"  to  which 
question  Sir  Henry  presently  underwrote:  "My  religion 
was  to  be  found  then,  where  yours  is  not  to  be  found 
now,  in  the  Word  of  God."  The  work  of  reformation 
at  which  the  martyrs  and  confessors  of  the  English 
Church  labored,  and  which  hundreds  among  them  sealed 
with  their  blood,  was  not  the  work  of  constructing  a 
new  system,  but  of  restoring  the  old  to  its  lost  purity. 
They  were  like  men  who  went  forth  to  cleanse  and 
restore  some  grand  old  cathedral,  whose  windows  were 
darkened  by  the  accumulated  dust  of  ages,  whose  courts 
were  defiled  with  uncleanness,  and  whose  altars  were 
polluted  with  strange  fire ;  and  their  work  was  to  clear 
away  the  heap  of  rubbish,  to  kindle  a  new  and  holy  fire 
on  its  altar,  to  fill  its  courts  with  the  incense  of  a  pure 
devotion,  and  to  let  in  the  unobscured  glad  sunlight  of 
truth,  filling  and  flooding  its  whole  vast  area. 

Such  was  the  work  which  bequeathed  to  us  the  Book 
of  Coniuion  Prayer^  combining  the  "old  paths"  of  the 
Apostolic  Church,  and  the  "  good  way  "  of  the  great 
Reformation.  May  we  not  safely  challenge  any  portion 
of  reformed  Christendom  to  produce  in  any  confession, 
or  symbol,  or  formulary  of  devotion  .that  which  repre- 
sents so  faithfully  the  spirit  of  that  great  movement  ? 
Hear  the  grand  and  stately  protest  of  the  Articles  of 
Religion,  as  for  three  hundred  years  they  have  borne 
their  solemn  witness  against  transubstantiation,  purgatory, 
pardons,  the  worshiping  and  adoration  of  images  and 
relics,  the  invocation  of  saints,  the  denial  of  the  cup  to 


25 

the  laity,  the  use  of  prayers  in  a  strange  tongue,  the  five 
added  and  spurious  sacraments,  the  requiring  anything 
to  be  beheved  as  necessary  to  salvation,  "  which  is  not 
read  in  holy  Scripture  nor  maybe  proved  thereby;"  and 
then  remember  that  the  authors  of  this  protest  gladly 
laid  down  their  lives  in  its  defense,  and  sealed  it  with 
their  blood. 

We  arc  not  unmindful  of  the  retort  that  may  be  made, 
that  not  a  few,  trained  under  the  influences  of  this  book, 
and  familiar  with  all  the  hallowed  memories  which  con- 
secrate it,  have  found  their  way  back  to  the  altars  of  a 
corrupt  and  idolatrous  Church,  even  while  the  language 
of  the  liturgy  yet  lingered  on  their  lips.  But  we  lay 
hold  of  the  very  objection  to  strengthem  our  position. 
The  perverted  religiousness  of  the  human  heart,  which 
hungers  for  a  sensuous  worship  and  another  Gospel,  can 
find  no  satisfaction  in  the  simple  Scriptural  worship  of 
this  book.  A  pure  and  Apostolic  Churcli  affords  no 
abiding-place  for  such  a  spirit.  "  They  went  out  from 
us  because  they  were  not  of  us."  They  go  forth  to  bear 
witness  that,  whilst  this  liturgy  remains  intact,  it  will 
prove  a  mighty  breakwater  to  save  the  Church  of  Christ 
from  ever  again  being  devastated  by  the  floods  of  super- 
stition and  idolatory. 

III.  Again,  we  claim  this  high  position  for  the  Prayer 
Book  because  it  is  committed  to  no  human  system  of 
theology,  but  is  broad  enough  and  comprehensive  enough 
to  embrace  men  who  differ  widely  in  their  interpretations 
and  definitions  of  Scriptural  truth. 

It  is  indeed  a  peculiar  glory  of  the  Prayer  Book  tnat 
it  is  marked  by  the  "  elastic  tenderness  of  a  nurse  who 
takes  into  account  the  varying  temperaments  and  dis- 
positions of  children ;"  not  by  the  rigid  precision  of  an 
2 


26 

imperious  taskmaster,  who  would  prostrate  into  a  pro- 
crustean  bed  all  the  varieties  of  human  feeling  and 
human  conscience.  It  bears  upon  its  very  fore-front 
Augustine's  motto,  "  In  essentials,  unity  ;  in  non-essen- 
tials, liberty ;  in  all  things,  charity."  They  who  framed 
the  liturgy  recognized  the  truth  that  their  work  was  not 
for  a  day,  but  for  all  time  ;  not  for  a  nation  or  a  denomi- 
nation, but  for  a  great  Catholic  Church,  which,  in  God's 
good  time,  might  be  co  extensive  with  the  earth. 

•Hence,  they  were  careful  that  its  doctrinal  teachings 
should  be  set  forth  only  as  the  Bible  sets  them  forth, 
and  as  they  were  embodied  in  ancient  creeds  and 
liturgies,  purified  from  all  the  errors  which  were  the 
growth  of  a  later  and  darker  age.  They  called  no  man 
master  on  earth ;  they  followed  not  Augustine,  nor 
Luther,  nor  Calvin,  but  Christ  and  His  Apostles.  Hence 
the  theology  of  the  Prayer  Book  is  not  the  confession  of 
Augsburg,  nor  that  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  nor  yet  of  the 
Westminster  Assembly.  It  is  not  Lutheranism,  nor  Cal- 
vinism, nor  Arminianism;  but  better  than  all,  it  embraces 
all  that  is  precious  and  of  vital  truth  in  each  of  these 
systems,  yet  committing  itself  to  none  ;  and  a  disciple 
of  each  of  these  schools  may  find  in  it  that  which  gives 
"  rest  to  his  soul." 

Does  the  follower  of  Calvin  find  the  doctrine  of  elec- 
tion a  "  doctrine  full  of  sweet,  pleasant,  and  unspeakable 
comfort  to  the  soul  of  a  godly  person  ?"  So  teaches  the 
seventeenth  article  of  religion  of  the  Prayer  Book.  Does 
the  Arminian  hold  nothing  to  be  more  vital  and  essen- 
tial than  the  doctrine  of  the  free,  unlimited,  unrestricted 
offer  of  salvation  to  all  mankind  ?  He  finds  it  running 
like  a  silver  thread  through  all  the  texture  of  these 
beauteous  garments  of  the  Bride  of  Christ.     Does  the 


27 

Wcslcyan  regard  it  as  the  blessed  privilege  of  a  child  of 
God  to  know  God  as  a  reconciled  father,  who,  in  Christ, 
has  put  away  his  sins,  and  given  him  joy  and  peace  in 
believing  ?  Where  else  is  such  a  truth  so  fully  recog- 
nized as  in  those  seraphic  strains  of  devotion  which  lift 
the  soul  into  holy  communion  with  God,  and  cause  it  to 
realize  its  acceptance  in  the  beloved?  Does  the  Lutheran 
place  a  high  value  upon  the  worthy  partaking  of  the 
Sacrament  of  Christ's  body  and  blood  ?  Surely,  the  lofty, 
glowing  language  of  the  communion  office  is  fitted  to 
meet  the  deepest  longings  of  the  soul,  as  it  feeds  on 
Christ  in  the  heart  by  faith  with  thanksgiving. 

Are  not  these  facts  evidence  that  the  system  of  the 
Prayer  Book  is  the  system  of  the  Bible  ?  This  is  the 
boast,  this  is  the  honor  of  our  Church.  Let  her  willingly 
submit  to  the  ignorant  reproach  that  men  of  every  creed 
can  find  in  her  something  to  favor  their  views,  whilst  she 
shares  this  reproach  with  the  Word  of  God.  It  is  thi^ 
fcict  which  fits  her  for  universality  ;  in  this  fact  is  found 
her  chief  power. 

IV.  Once  more :  In  claiming  for  the  Prayer  Book- 
that  it  is  fitted  to  be  a  basis  of  unity  to  all  Christians,  we 
claim  for  it  what  the  experience  of  centuries  has  con- 
firmed— that  it  is  eminently  adapted  to  unfold  and 
nourish  the  spiritual  life  of  the  believer. 

Where  is  the  longing  of  the  soul  whjch  it  does  not 
satisfy?  Where  the  craving  it  does  not  appease?  Where 
the  deepest  experience  of  the  love  of  God  which  finds 
not  here  an  appropriate  utterance?  WHiere  the  contrition 
which  cannot  unburden  itself  in  its  penitential  pleadings? 
What  soul-sorrow  finds  not  fitting  expression  ?  What 
soul-rapture  may  not  find  wings  for  its  heavenward  flight 


28 

in  these  anthems  worthy  to  be  chanted  by  cherubim  and 

seraphim  ? 

Here  we  advance  our  argument  to  a  high  position  in- 
deed     We  claim  that  the  voice  of  three  hundred  years 
bears  testimony  to  the  truth  that  the  Prayer  Book  is 
eminently  fitted  to  develop  and  nourish  the  very  loftiest 
type  of  spiritual  piety.     We  are  willing  to  test  it  by  its 
fruits  in  the  lives  of  the  faithful.     And  j  ust  as  the  course 
of  a  stream  may  be  traced  at  a  distance  by  the  luxuriant 
skirt  of  trees  lining   its  banks  and  fed  by  its  waters,  so 
through  all  the  lapse  of  three  centuries  may  wc  trace  the 
windings  of  this  river  that  makes  glad  the  city  of  our 
God  by  the  trees  of  righteousness,  the  saints  of  lofty 
stature,  whose  roots  found  rich  nourishment  in  its  living 

fountains. 

The  monks  of  the  Middle  Ages  spent  almost  a  lifetime 
in  illuminating,  by  curious  skill  of  the  pencil,  the  Missal 
and  the  Breviary;  but  what  an  illuminated  edition  of  the 
'Prayer  Book  would  it  be,  could  we  gather  around  it  the 
lives  of  the  elect    and    saintly  spirits   who    have    been 
nourished  at  its  rich  banquet  of  spiritual  food!     It  will 
well  repay  us  to  walk  with  reverent  step  and  admiring 
hearts  along  the  far-stretching  galleries  of  the  Church's 
history,  and  pause  before  the  portraits  of  men  and  women 
whose  names  are  dear  to  all  God's  people,  and  who  may 
be  justly  claimed  as  living  epistles,  witnessing  to   the 
power  and  preciousness  of  this  book.     "  Come  and  see;' 
is  our  reply  to  him  who  would  depreciate  the  Liturgy, 
and  tell  us  that  its  tendency  is  to  deaden  spirituality  and 
to   make  formal,  lifeless  Christians.     "Come  and  see" 
the  saints  of  lofty  stature,  the  men  and  women  of  lofty 
holiness,  the  weighty  wrestlers  with  God,  the  meek  and 
lowly  followers  of  the  Lamb,  whose  names  and  works  are 


29 

now  the  heritage  of  all  Christendom,  and  whose  lives  are 
most  truly  the  fruits  of  Prayer  Book  nurture. 

To  what  sphere  of  faithful  service  for  Christ  can  we 
turn  without  meeting  a  cloud  of  witnesses  to  His  truth?  Is 
it  among  those  who  "resisted  unto  blood"  for  the  precious 
truth  of  the  Gospel  ?  What  venerable  and  saintly  forms 
are  those  which  pass  before  us,  girded  for  the  sacrifice, 
and  chanting,  "This  is  the  day  the  Lord  hath  made; 
this  is  the  way,  narrow  though  it  be,  yet  full  of  the  peace 
of  God,  and  leading  to  eternal  bliss?"  Need  I  tell  you? 
They  are  Ridley  and  Latimer,  Cranmer  and  Bradford, 
Rogers  and  Philpot  and  Taylor,  on  their  way  to  the 
stake,  to  swell  "  the  noble  army  of  martyrs !" 

Is  it  among  great  doctors  and  masters  and  learned 
theologians,  whose  writings  form  the  stately  buttresses 
defending  and  upholding  the  temple  of  truth  ?  Where 
shall  we  find  names  more  august  than  that  of  the  Church 
of  England's  great  apologist,  Jewel,  whose  piety  was  as 
profound  as  his  learning,  and  of  whose  departure  it  has 
been  beautifully  said  by  his  biographer  Walton,  that  "it 
was  a  question  whether  his  last  ejaculations  or  his  soul 
did  first  enter  paradise?" — or  the  incomparable  Hooker, 
whose  meekness  and  heavenly-mindedness  we  are  apt  to 
forget  amidst  the  bright  shining  of  his  wondrous  intellect 
— or  the  myriad-minded  Jeremy  Taylor,  or  Stillingfleet 
or  Chillingworth,  or  Barrow,  colossal  champions  of  the 
Reformed  faith. 

Is  it  among  true-hearted  and  faithful  and  holy  pastors? 
What  beauteous  pictures  are  those  that  live  in  our  memo- 
ries of  the  life  of  the  saintly  Leighton,  of  whom  Burnet 
said,  after  an  intimacy  of  more  than  twenty -two  years, 
"  I  never  once  saw  him  in  any  other  temper  but  that  in 
which  I  wished  to  be  in  the  last  moment  of  my  life — of 


30 

the  simple-minded  and  gentle  country  parson  of  Remer- 
ton,  whose  dying  request  was,  '  Read  me  the  prayers  of 
my  mother,  the  Church  of  England  :  there  are  no  prayers 
like  them:'  " — of  the  home  and  the  flock  of  Leigh  Rich- 
mond, in  the  beauteous  Isle  of  Wight,  where  the  grave  of 
the  Dairyman's  Daughter,  a  Prayer-Book  Christian,  is  a 
spot  sacred  to  the  heart  of  millions,  who  have  wept  over 
her  touching  story;  of  the  lives  and  labors  of  Tillotson 
and  Ken,  of  Usher  and  Hall,  of  Simeon  and  Cecil,  of 
Newton  and  Ven. 

Shall  we  seek  among  the  sweet  singers  of  the  Church 
for  traces  of  its  influence  ?  Where  but  at  these  fountains 
did  Cowper,  and  Charles  Wesley,  and  Wordsworth,  and 
Keble  drink  inspiration  ? 

Passing  to  the  noble  sphere  of  a  world-embracing  phi- 
lanthropy, whose  names  are  enshrined  so  sacredly  in 
the  hearts  of  all  good  men  as  those  two  Prayer-book 
Christians,  one  whose  last  request  was,  "Lay  me  quietly 
in  my  grave,  place  a  sun-dial  over  my  breast,  and  let  me 
be  forgotten ;"  and  yet  whose  statue  in  St.  Paul's  Cathe- 
dral bears  the  name  of  John  Howard,  and  the  other,  who 
sleeps  in  Westminster  Abbey  by  the  side  of  Pitt  and 
Burke,  and  Canning  and  Sheridan,  his  compeers,  yet 
greater  than  them  all — William  Wilberforce.  Or,  rising 
to  the  highest  field  of  holy  labors,  whose  names  shine 
out  against  the  darkness  of  heathenism  so  bright  as  those 
of  Martyn,  of  Heber,  of  Selwyn,  and  a  host  like-minded, 
who  found  in  this  book  strength  and  holy  inspiration  ? 

By  its  fruits  is  the  tree  known  ;  and  by  its  fruits  let 
the  Prayer  Book  be  tested.  Is  it  presumption,  then,  to 
claim  for  it  a  fitness  to  be  the  Prayer  Book  of  all  Prot- 
estant Christendom,  to  bind  together  in  one  great  Chris- 
tian family  those  now  divided  and  discordant  ? 

Will  it  be  said  that  it  is  in  vain  to  hope  for,  to  pray  for, 


31 

to  labor  for  such  a  result?  Nay,  not  so;  there  is  a 
yearning  for  unity,  deep-seated  and  wide-spread,  which 
can  only  come  from  above,  and  which  stirs  the  noblest 
among'  us  to  heroic  action  ?  Whata  sublime  thought  that 
this  is  the  work  God  has  committed  to  us,  whose  birth  right 
is  this  heritage — to  restore  the  long-lost  unity  of  Protest- 
ant Christendom  upon  the  basis  of  the  Prayer  Book  !  To 
grasp  this  thought  in  all  its  fulness  would  of  itself  elevate 
the  Church  to  a  status  never  yet  attained  in  this  gene- 
ration. It  would  heal  every  division,  and  hush  every 
voice  of  strife  among  ourselves  into  silence.  It  would 
animate  us  to  the  noblest  endeavors  after  a  character  be- 
coming a  position  of  honor  and  responsibility  such  as 
this.  It  would  incite  to  noble  deeds  of  piety,  noble  works 
of  love,  to  prove  to  all  men  what  mighty  power  for  good 
God  has  entrusted  to  His  Church  !  It  would  restrain  all 
harsh  judgment  and  condemnation  of  those  whom  we 
seek  to  bring  into  our  heritage.  And  its  voice  of  lo\e 
would  ever  be  to  all  who  profess  and  call  themselves 
Christians,  "stand  in  the  ways  and  see  and  ask  for  the 
old  paths  where  is  the  good  way,  and  walk  therein,  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  to  your  souls."  "Come  and  sit  down 
with  us  at  this  feast  of  fat  things.  Come  and  share  our 
inheritance.  Come  back  under  the  shelter  of  the  old 
roof-tree  of  our  Father's  house.  Come  with  us  and  we 
will  do  you  good,  for  the  Lord  hath  spoken  good  con- 
cerning Israel." 

Oh!  blessed  vision  of  the  Church  of  the  future,  as  it 
rises  before  me  to-day,  a  city  at  unity  in  itself;  its 
strength  no  longer  wasted  in  intestine  warfare,  but  com- 
bined against  a  common  foe,  going  forth  from  conquer- 
ing unto  conquest,  fair  as  the  sun,  beauteous  as  the 
moon,  and  terrible  as  an  army  with  banners. 


REPLY  OF  BISHOP  JOHNS  TO  REV.  J.  A. 
LATANE'S  LETTER  OF  WITHDRAWAL. 


Malvern,  Fth.  2d,  1874. 

Reverend  and  Dear  Brother : — You  might  well  suppose 
that  the  announcement  contained  in  your  letter  would 
cause  me  both  "  surprise  and  pain,"  in  which  your  many 
friends  have  largely  shared,  en  hearing  of  your  with- 
drawal from  the  Church  of  their  deliberate  choice  and 
devoted  affection. 

For  many  years  your  own  love  for  that  Church,  and 
your  diligent  labors  in  her  Ministry,  have  compared 
favorably  with  those  of  your  attached  brethren  of  the 
Clergy,  and  secured  for  you  the  kind  regards  of  the 
intelligent  and  pious  Laity  throughout  the  Diocese.  Of 
this  you  have  received  many  and  unmistakable  proofs, 
which  respect  for  your  delicacy  restrains  me  from 
mentioning.  In  all  this  favorable  manifestation,  no  one 
rejoiced  more  cordially  than  myself.  I  thankfully  re- 
garded you  as  one  on  whom,  in  my  age  and  infirmities, 
I  could  rely  to  aid  in  steadying  my  feeble  steps  and 
supplying  my  lack  of  service.  This  I  am  sure  you  per- 
ceived, and  so  can  in  some  degree  understand  the  shock 
and  sorrow  which  your  announcement  has  caused. 

You  need  not,  my  dear  brother,  apprehend  any  un- 
generous construction  of  your  motives  in  taking  this 
serious  step.  For  our  brethren  in  Virginia,  I  can  engage 
that  one  and  all  will  render  jrt'/^  full  credit  for  conscien- 
tiousness   however   decidedly   they    may  disallow  the 

(32) 


33 

reasons  you  assign  for  leaving  the   Episcopal   Church, 
and  regard  it  as  a  causeless  separation. 

Your  just  testimony  as  to  the  unchanged  Protestant 
and  Scriptural  teaching  of  the  Articles  and  Offices  of 
the  Church  is  no  more  than  was  to  have  been  expected 
from  one  of  your  intelligence  and  candor,  though  it  is 
testimony  which  many  persons  must  find  difficult  to 
reconcile  with  your  "  withdrawal." 

Your  testimony  may  be  presented  as  follows:  You,  of 
course,  regard  the  doctrines  held  by  what  you  call  the 
"  Low-Church  Party  "  to  be  sound  and  Scriptural.  Now, 
on  page  thirteen  you  represent  "the  Thirty-nine  Articles 
of  the  Church,  which  were  designed  to  be  the  standard 
of  doctrine  for  the  Church,"  as  sustaining  the  Low- 
Church  Party  in  its  teaching,  and  as  proving  "  con- 
clusively that  it  (the  Low-Church  Party)  holds  to-day 
the  doctrines  held  by  the  framers  of  the  Prayer  Book." 

The  passage  in  its  connection  affords  favorable  testi- 
mony to  the  orthodoxy  of  the  XXXIX  Articles,  and 
indirectly  to  the  orthodoxy  of  the  Prayer  Book. 

Again,  page  4  :  "It  is  true  that  her  standards  of  doc- 
trine remain  unchanged,  and  the  XIX.  and  XXIII. 
Articles  in  the  Prayer  Book  still  testify  to  her  original 
Protestant  stand  on  this  question  "  (the  question  of  the 
Ministry,  which  carries  with  it  the  whole  question  about 
Priest,  Sacrifice,  and  Altar). 

Once  more,  page  4  :  "  I  am  satisfied  that  this  doctrine 
(that  Baptism  invariably  effects  regeneration)  was  not 
held  by  the  framers  of  the  Prayer  Book,  nor  intended  to 
be  expressed  in  the  Service,  and  therefore  is  not  really 
the  doctrine  of  the  Church." 

I  do  not  cite  these  passages  as  dissenting  from  them, 
for  I  think  1*hem  accurately  true;  but  as  expressing  your 


deliberate  opinion  as  to  the  strict  conformity  of  the 
teaching  of  the  Churcli,  in  the  Articles  and  Offices,  with 
the  Word  of  God  as  interpreted  by  the  Reformers. 

For  separation  from  a  Church  justly  entitled  to  such 
testimony,  what  reasons  can  be  assigned?  Those  alleged 
in  your  letter  I  cannot  recite  in  full,  nor  is  it  necessar}% 
being,  as  you  say,  "just  those  which  have  been  for  some 
years  a  burden  and  grief  to  many  in  the  Church,"  and 
it  might  be  added,  which  have  been  often  and  clamor- 
ously urged  by  adversaries  without.  They  may  be  thus 
summarily  stated  : 

Tkere  are  in  some  of  the  Formularies  provided  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  a  few,  very  few,  words  or 
phrases  which,  though  if  rightly  interpreted  according 
to  the  intent  of  the  framers,  express  true  doctrine,  yet 
are  /iad/e  to  be  misunderstood,  and,  in  /iact,  have  been 
and  are  so  misunderstood  and  perverted,  as  to  subserv^ 
the  cause  of  serious  doctrinal  errors.  This  statement  is 
unhappily  true,  and  furnishes  a  good  and  sufficient  reason 
for  such  alterations  as  may  be  necessary  to  obviate  the 
evil.  But  it  is  no  valid  reason  for  repudiating  the  Book 
or  loithdrawing fi'om  the  Church.  If  tJiis  were  admitted, 
consistency  would  require  us  to  reject  the  Pauline 
Epistles,  and  withdraw  from  Christianity.  St.  Peter  (2, 
iii.  16)  writes,  that  in  all  those  Epistles  "are  some  things 
hard  to  be  understood,"  and  which  "  certain  persons 
wrest,  as  they  do  also  the  other  Scriptures,  unto  their 
own  destruction."  You  would  not  expect  me  to  allow 
the  validity  of  a  reason  capable  of  an  application  so  wide 
and  so  destructive,  and  which  would  make  a  clean  sweep 
of  all  we  both  hold  to  be  most  precious. 

The  true  lesson  taught  by  the  facts  which  are  ad- 
mitted is  the  importance  of  such  alterations  in  the  terms 


35 

and  phrases  alluded  to,  or  in  the  Rubrics  relative  to  their 
use,  as  may  most  effectually  guard  against  misunder- 
standing and  perversion.  Any  such  interference  with 
the  text  of  Sacred  Scripture  is  out  of  the  question;  but 
for  an  uninspired  document  no  such  exemption  can  be 
claimed.  Now  this  Church,  after  the  example  of  the 
Church  of  England,  has,  in  her  Preface  to  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer,  laid  it  down  as  a  rule  that  :  "  The  par- 
ticular forms  of  Divine  Worship,  and  the  Rites  and 
Ceremonies  appointed  to  be  used  therein,  being  things 
in  their  own  nature  indifferent  and  alta-abU  and  so 
ackncni'ledgcd,  it  is  but  reasonable  that  upon  weighty  and 
important  considerations,  according  to  the  various  emer- 
gencies of  times  and  occasions,  such  cha^igcs  and  altera- 
tions should  be  made  therein  as  to  those  who  are  in 
authority  should,  from  time  to  time,  seem  either  neces- 
sary or  expedient." 

Wise  and  ample  provision  is  thus  made  to  remedy 
just  such  evils  as  those  of  which  you  complain. 

But  you  despair  of  relief  in  this  way,  pronounce  it  an 
"  absolute  impossibility  ;"  represent  the  effort  made  in 
this  direction  by  the  nine  Bishops,  in  a  letter  to  their 
brethren,  as  a  "  signal  failure,"  ending  in  a  "  mortifying 
discomfiture."  Having  been  present  in  the  House  of 
Bishops  during  the  entire  proceeding  to  which  you  so 
slightingly  refer,  and  having  watched  it  with  intense  in- 
terest for  those  whom  it  was  intended  to  relieve,  and 
having  carefully  committed  it  to  writing  at  the  tinic,  I 
feel  at  liberty  to  correct  the  erroneous  impression  you 
have  received. 

Before  an  opportunity  offered  for  presenting  the  Letter 
of  the  nine  Bishops,  the  whole  subject  was  introduced 
in  a  promising  form,  and  with  a  ver>'  appropriate  state- 


36 

ment  by  one  of  the  majority.  The  discussion,  which 
continued  for  several  days,  was  conducted  not  only  with 
exemplary  courtesy,  but  in  a  fraternal  spirit,  which  will 
not  soon  be  forgotten  by  those  who  witnessed  it  with 
admiration  and  gratitude.  Instead  of  widening  the  dis- 
tance between  those  who  differed,  that  distance  diminished 
with  every  day's  deliberations.  The  measure  at  first 
proposed  was  from  time  to  time  variously  modified  with 
most  amazing  concord,  and  at  last  adopted  and  signed, 
as  published,  by  the  whole  House,  with  only  one  excep- 
tion. The  names  of  forty-eight  Bishops  are  affixed  to 
the  Declaration.  This  result  you  will  scarcely  characterize 
as  a  "  mortifying  discomfiture."  You,  my  dear  brother, 
may  think  and  say  that  "the  Declaration"  is  not  in  "any 
sense  "  "  a  gain  "  to  those  for  whose  relief  the  nine 
Bishops  were  concerned.  I  can  assure  you  that  though 
what  those  Bishops  sought  was  but  partially  attained, 
yet  it  was  so  much  beyond  what  they  hoped  from  a 
first  move,  and  was  yielded  so  handsomely,  that  they 
"thanked  God  and  took  courage."  I  will  add,  that  when 
the  Declaration  as  adopted  was  previously  submitted  to 
Bishop  Mcllvaine,  with  the  inquiry,  "  How  does  this 
strike  you  ?"  he  very  emphatically  replied,  with  a  smile 
of  unmistakable  satisfaction,  "  The  best  thing  yet !"  But 
the  circular  addressed  by  the  nine  Bishops  to  those 
whom  they  sought  to  relieve,  and  which  was  prepared 
and  sent  to  press  after  the  Declaration  was  adopted,  and 
to  which  I  beg  leave  to  refer  you,  may  enforce  my  brief 
report,  and  perhaps  modify  your  views  of  the  transaction 
and  its  results. 

It  placed  you,  and  others  who  agree  with  you,  doctri- 
nally,  in  an  easier  and  more  advantageous  position,  leav- 
ing you  unchanged    in  your  conviction  that  the  great 


37 

spiritual  change,  the  new  birth  unto  righteousness,  is 
not  inseparably  connected  with  the  administration  of 
Baptism,  and  that  the  contrary  view  "  was  not  held  by 
the  framers  of  the  Prayer  Book,  nor  intended  to  be  ex- 
pressed in  the  Service,  and  is  not,  therefore,  the  doctrine 
of  the  Church  ;"  and,  moreover,  sustaining  you  in  this 
your  conviction, by  this  Declaration  of  forty -eight  Bishops 
in  Council,  who  state  that,  *'  being  asked,  in  order  to 
the  quieting  of  the  consciences  of  sundry  members  of 
the  said  Church  (Protestant  Episcopal  Church  in  United 
States),  to  declare  our  conviction  as  to  the  meaning  of 
the  word  '  Regenerate,'  in  the  Offices  for  the  Ministra- 
tion of  Baptism  of  Infants,  do  declare  that,  in  our  opinion, 
the  word  '  Regenerate  '  is  not  there  so  used  as  to  deter- 
mine that  a  moral  change  in  the  subject  of  Baptism  is 
wrought  in  that  Sacrament." 

That  efforts  would  be  made  by  some  to  explain  away 
the  meaning  and  force  of  this  testimony  was  to  be  ex- 
pected ;  but  there  it  stands,  to  be  understood  and  used 
agreeably  to  the  express  design  of  the  signers  and  the 
proper  import  of  its  terms;  and,  as  the  nine  Bishops  and 
very  many  others  thought,  worth  considerably  more 
than  "  nothing,"  both  in  itself,  for  the  excellent  spirit  in 
which  it  was  done,  and  the  hope  thus  given  that,  as  it 
should  become  apparent  that  other  measures  were  needed 
"  for  the  preservation  of  the  unity  of  the  Church,  and 
cutting  off  occasion  from  them  that  seek  occasion  of 
cavil  or  quarrel  against  her  Liturgy,"  such  measures 
would  be  adopted. 

Another  consideration  which  you  urge  with  much 
feeling  is  the  "  attitude  which  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  has  assumed  towards  the  great  bulk  of  Protestant 
Christians."    Of  course,  you  do  not  mean  "the  Church," 


38 

for  you  say  in  the  same  immediate  connection  that  her 
standards  of  doctrine  remain  unchanged,  and  the  XIX. 
and  XXIII.  Articles  in  the  Prayer  Book  still  testify  to 
her  original  Protestant  stand  on  this  question.  I  there- 
fore understand  you  to  mean  what  you  indicate  by  "  the 
prevailing  opinion,"  the  "  current  of  public  sentiment." 
Such  "  sentiment "  and  "  opinion  "  you  regard  as  im- 
perious and  unchurching  in  reference  to  all  ministers 
not  Episcopally  ordained. 

"  Public  opinion,"  when  counter  to  our  own,  may  be 
annoying,  but  it  is  of  no  authority.  "  Prevailing  sentiment" 
is  too  variable  and  fallacious  to  be  entitled  to  the  con- 
sideration and  influence  which  you  seem  to  allow  it, 
even  when  you  denounce  it  as  pernicious.  Under  such 
circumstances,  it  would  be  more  like  yourself  to  stand 
immovably  witnessing  for  the  truth,  trusting  to  its  power 
for  triumph,  and  not  to  seek  relief  by  getting  away  from 
opposition.  Your  known  spirit  authorized  me  to  antici- 
pate a  calm  but  unflinching  maintenance  of  a  right  posi- 
tion in  a  right  cause.     I  confess  I  am  disappointed. 

When,  in  any  matter  involving  conscience,  be  it  in 
reference  to  faith  or  practice,  public  sentiment  is  erroneous, 
and  becomes  so  prevalent  and  aggressive  as  to  pass  into 
law,  tJien,  indeed,  the  grievance  is  intolerable.  This  is 
precisely  what  you  feat'-  on  the  subject  of  the  Ministry. 
You  think  the  drift  is  decidedly  towards  the  high  lati- 
tudes, and  the  current  so  strong  that  the  result  is  inevit- 
able ;  that  the  bearing  of  legislation  is  increasingly  in 
that  direction,  and  has  already  progressed  so  far,  that  if 
we  accept  the  current  interpretation  of  certain  Canons, 
no  minister  of  the  Episcopal  Church  can  now,  by  any 
one  official  act,  recognize  any  other  Protestant  Church, 
or  the  ministers  of  any  other  Church,  as  lawful  ministers. 


39 

I  am  not  aware  of  an}-  such  advance  in  legislation  as 
you  describe.  The  only  action  on  this  subject  of  recent 
date,  was  the  adoption  of  Canon  II,  Tit.  i,  "  Of  persons 
not  ministers  of  this  Church  officiating  in  any  Congrega- 
tion thereof"  It  simply  prohibits  the  officiating  in  any 
one  of^  our  Congn'gatioiis  of  any  person,  without  sufficient 
evidence  of  his  being  duly  licensed  or  oi^daincd  to  minister 
in  this  Omrch.  The  language  of  this  Canon  is  by  no 
means  as  strong  as  that  in  the  preface  to  "  the  Form  and 
manner  of  Making,  Ordaining,  and  Consecrating,"  es- 
tablished in  General  Convention,  Sept.  A.  D.  1792.  In 
both,  the  purport  and  scope  are  the  same  ;  to  protect  the 
congregations  of  this  Church  against  the  ministrations 
of  persons  who  are  not  responsible  to  this  Church  for 
what  they  may  teach  and  do.  It  does  not  declare  that 
no  persons  are  Ministers  except  those  ordained  to  minis- 
ter in  this  Church,  but  simply  that  such  only  are  allowed 
to  officiate  for  our  people.  It  is  a  prudential  municipal 
regulation,  that  our  congregations  may  not  be  exposed 
to  disturbance  by  the  insidious  teaching  of  some  one 
who  might  delight  in  the  opportunity  for  creating  con- 
fusion, especially  as  he  was  not  liable  to  be  dealt  with  for 
the  evil  he  had  caused. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  this  regulation  is  virtually 
in  practice,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  by  other  Churches 
where  it  has  not  been  ordained  by  law,  a  condftion  which  I 
apprehend  involves  more  delicacy,  and  gives  occasion  to 
more  offense,  than  where  the  whole  is  the  subject  of  posi- 
tive enactment. 

The  regulation  is  not  a  line  wider  than  the  Church's  re- 
sponsibility. It  covers  only  the  services  provided  for  our 
ozvn  people  and  in  our  t^zt';/ places  of  worship.  If  any  one 
of  our  members  or  Ministers  thinks  proper  to  visit  an  as- 


40 

sembly  of  Christians  of  another  Church,  and  to  join  in 
their  devotions,  listen  to  their  teachings,  partake  in  their 
Communion,  there  is  no  law  prohibiting  his  course.  It  is 
for  him  to  judge  of  its  expediency;  and  if  he  exercises  his 
liberty  without  ostentation,  and  without  invidiously  re- 
flecting on  brethren  who  do  not  desire  to  follow  his  exam- 
ple, he  violates  no  rule  of  his  Church,  and  is  not  justly 
liable  to  censure.  If  he  is  injured  by  his  indulgence,  he 
has  himself  only  to  blame,  and  for  any  benefit  he  re- 
ceives  all  who  love  him  will  be  thankful. 

Every  one  knows  that  Ministers  and  members  of 
other  Churches  may,  and  do,  when  they  desire  it,  so  par- 
take with  us.  Such  intercommunion  is  neither  unlawful 
nor  new.  The  declaration  of  Archbishop  Usher  was  but 
the  spirit  of  the  leading  Reformers  :  "Howsoever,  I  must 
needs  think  that  the  Churches  v/hich  have  no  Bishop 
are  thereby  become  very  much  defective  in  their  govern- 
ment; and  that  the  Churches  in  France,  who,  living 
under  a  Popish  power,  cannot  do  what  they  would,  are 
more  excusable  in  this  defect  than  the  Low  Countries, 
that  live  under  a  Free  State,  yet,  for  testifying  my  com- 
munion with  these  Churches  (which  I  do  love  and  honor 
as  true  members  of  the  Church  Universal)  I  do  profess, 
that  with  like  affection  I  should  receive  the  blessed 
Sacrament  at  the  hands  of  the  Dutch  Ministers  if  I  were 
in  Holland,' as  I  should  do  at  the  hands  of  the  French 
Ministers,  if  I  were  in  Charitone."  The  action  of  Dean 
Alford  at  Berlin,  and  of  Dean  Smith  in  New  York,  each 
having  the  sanction  of  his  Metropolitan,  shows  that  the 
liberty  is  not  withdrawn  or  antiquated  in  the  Church  of 
England. 

In  the  Church  in  the  United  States  such  intercom- 
munion is  neither  interfered  with,  nor  likely  so  to  be.     I 


41 

regard  this  as  one  form  of  the  practical  recognition  which 
you  seem  to  think  is  discountenanced  by  "  the  Episcopal 
Church."  Not  the  Episcopal  Church,  my  good  brother; 
her  skirts  are  clean.  There  are,  indeed,  certain  Episco- 
palians, how  many  I  know  not,  I  wish  there  were  none, 
whose  temperament  inclines  them  to  exclusiveness,  and 
whose  harsh  censure  of  those  who  differ  from  them 
equajs  the  outcry  of  the  craftsmen  at  Ephesus.  But 
these  are  not  the  Episcopal  Church.  They  speak  with- 
out her  sanction,  and  have  no  power  to  enforce  what  they 
dictate.  Such  vehement  and  "  imperious  "  vociferation 
may  be  annoying,  nothing  more.  You  seem  worn  out 
by  this  din,  and  propose  to  find  relief  by  retiring  from 
the  enclosure  now  common  to  both.  I  would  agree  with 
you,  if  they  had  essentially  altered  the  enclosure,  changed 
its  ministration  so  as  to  forbid  what  we  consider  obliga- 
tory, or  enforce  what  we  deem  sinful.  If  they  had  power 
for  all  this,  and  so  use  it,  then  we  could  but  suffer,  to 
death  if  need  be,  or  for  conscience  sake  go  out  to  live 
and  labor  elsewhere.  But  no  such  transformation  has 
taken  place.  The  venerable  Church  in  itself  is,  from  the 
corner-stone  to  the  cross-surmounted  spire,  the  same 
from  which,  at  an  incalculable  cost,  our  fathers  wrenched 
the  corrupt  accretions  by  which  it  had  become  disfigured 
and  defiled.  The  Services  in  which  we  engage  are  the 
same  simple  Scriptural  Services  by  which  their  hearts 
ascended  to  God  in  prayer  and  praise.  The  servants  who 
minister  are  free  to  preach  the  glorious  Gospel  ;  no  let 
or  hindrance  other  than  their  own  infirmities.  The 
children  are  all  free  to  take  the  Bread,  and  drink  tlic 
water  of  life.  And  shall  we  leave  this  blessed  home  and 
relinquish  this  precious  heritage?  For  what?  Whither 
and  with  whom?     No  !  no  !  it  is  all  ours  and  unchanged  1 


42 

Let  those  who  covet  change,  and  are  intent  on  innova- 
tions, who  "are  not  of  us,  go  out  from  us ;"  but  let  those 
who  love  the  Church  as  it  is,  and  because  it  is  what  it  is, 
who  find  refreshment  and  strength  in  its  Scriptural  Servi- 
ces and  Sacraments,  who  prize  its  Apostolic  ministry  and 
open  Bible,  abide  in  the  enjoyment  of  these  inestimable 
privileges,  guard  them  with  jealous  care,  and  transmit 
them  unimpaired  to  those  who  are  to  come,  and  so  meet 
as  we  may,  our  responsibility  to  the  Great  Head  of  the 
Church,  who  has  entrusted  to  4is  such  incomparable 
treasures. 

This,  my  dear  brother,  is  my  clear  conclusion,  after  a 
careful  consideration  of  the  reasons  you  assign  for  your 
"  withdrawal,"  not  one  of  which,  as  far  as  I  am  capable 
of  judging,  furnishes  any  justification  of  your  act. 

You  know  how  fully  our  Theological  views  harmonize. 
I  also  agree  with  you  in  reference  to  grievances  of  which 
you  complain,  though  I  think  you  over-estimate  their 
extent  and  power.  That  I  regard  you  as  mistaken  as  to 
the  duty  which  these  grievences  impose  on  the  Clergy 
and  Laity  of  the  Church,  and  as  to  the  proper  mode  of 
obtaining  relief,  the  previous  pages  sufficiently  disclose. 
You  will  believe  me,  when  I  assure  you  of  the  great  re- 
luctance with  which  I  make  to  you  this  communication 
in  this  mode,  but  your  letter  in  print  and  published  left 
me  no  choice. 

In  what  I  have  thus  written  there  is,  I  hope,  not  a 
word  discordant  with  the  fraternal  relations  which  have 
obtained  since  our  intercourse  began,  or  to  impair  them 
in  the  future. 

The  Scriptural  example,  which  you  adduce  to  support 
your  policy  of  withdrawal  I  readily  accept,  and  fervently 
hope  it  will  have  your  entire  conformity.     Paul  and  Bar- 


43 

nabas  had  "  sharp  contention,"  and  they  "  departed  asun- 
der one  from  the  other;"  sought  separate  spheres  of 
service,  that  was  all ;  neither  of  them  lOithdrew  from  the 
Church.  If,  however,  you  think  you  must  make  the  ex- 
periment, I  trust  you  will  only  depart  for  a  season,  that 
we  *'  may  receive  you  forever  a  brother  beloved."  And 
if  my  already  prolonged  life  i:i  extended  so  far,  you  will 
find  me  ready  at  the  entrance,  or  rather  hastening  as  fast 
as  my  tottering  steps  will  permit,  to  meet  you,  to  accom- 
pany and  welcome  you  to  your  early  home. 

Then  may  I  say,  as  did  the  aged  Simeon,  "Lord,  now 
lettest  Thou  Thy  servant  depart  in  peace,  for  mine  eyes 
have  seen  Thy  salvation." 

Meanwhile,  yours,  truly, 

J.  Johns. 
Rev.  J.  A.  Latane. 


DATE  DUE 

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MI.  JW.  11.  19W 


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